Lion Air crash: Families distraught as human remains found after tragedy

After retrieving six bodies from the sea where an Indonesian passenger plane crashed near Jakarta, search and rescue officials say they fear there will be no survivors.

Lion Air flight JT 610 was carrying 189 people, including three children, when it disappeared from radar just 13 minutes after takeoff, according to Basarnas, Indonesia's national search and rescue agency.

The plane, a new Boeing 737 MAX 8, was carrying 181 passengers, as well as six cabin crew members and two pilots. It was bound for Pangkal Pinang on the Indonesian island of Bangka.

UPDATE: Why experts think one of the world's most advanced planes crashed

"My prediction is that no one survived because we only managed to retrieve body parts. It has been a few hours since the crash so it is possible all 189 people were killed," Bambang Suryo Aji, director of operations for Basarnas, said in a news conference.

As many as 21 body bags have been transported to a hospital in east Jakarta for identification as rescue workers continue to search the sea. The bags contained human remains, debris from the airplane and personal items belonging to the victims, according Indonesia's National Search and Rescue agency. Six bodies were recovered earlier in the day and taken to the same hospital.

Aji said that rescue workers had found debris appearing to be the plane's tail. The main wreckage had still not been located.

Search and rescue teams were working against high waves and strong currents, in an area spanning 150 nautical miles, added Aji. Underwater robots were being used in the search effort.

Plane had reported problems the night before

 The flight made a request to air traffic control to return to the airport about 19 kilometres out from takeoff, but did not indicate there was any emergency, Yohanes Sirait, spokesman for AirNav Indonesia, the agency that oversees air traffic navigation, told CNN.

The spokesman added that the aircraft would have been given priority landing upon such a request, but that air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane shortly after. The plane had not turned back, according to the radar.

The plane had reported problems the night before on a flight from Denpasar to Jakarta, Lion Air's CEO Edward Sirait told local media TV1 in an interview. Sirait said engineers had checked and repaired the problem and reported that the plane was ready to fly

The captain of the plane, Bhavye Suneja, an Indian national, had more than 6000 flight hours, and his co-pilot, named Harvino, had logged more than 5000, according to a statement posted by Lion Air.

Speaking to reporters at the carrier's headquarters in Jakarta, Sirait said the plane was "airworthy" and that the pilot had carried out all preflight inspections according to procedure. He added that the pilots had passed mandatory drug screening.

https://twitter.com/SAR_NASIONAL/status/1056780744922554370

Twenty ministry officials on board

 The plane took off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, greater Jakarta, at 6:21 am, and had been due to land at around 7:30 am in Pangkal Pinan, the largest city on Bangka.

Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said there were 20 ministry officials on board. They were returning to their posts in Pangkal Pinang after spending the weekend with their families in Jakarta for a public holiday.

Lion Air has flown 90 family members of passengers on board flight JT-160 from Pangkal Pinang to Jakarta, the airline said in a statement. Another 76 family members were also being flown out.

Debris, life vests and a cellphone have been discovered in the water two nautical miles from the coordinates given as the crash site, rescue officials said.

Boats, a helicopter and 250 rescuers, including divers, were working at the crash site, some 34 nautical miles northeast of the coast in the Java Sea. The frogmen are searching in water up to 35 metres deep.

Authorities said they are still trying to locate the emergency locator transmitter, which is currently not transmitting.

Lion Air plane had only flown 800 hours

Lion Air acquired the aircraft in August and it had flown only 800 hours, said Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of the National Transport Safety Committee (NTSC).

Manufacturer Boeing released a statement saying the company was "deeply saddened" by the loss of flight JT 610. The company offered "heartfelt sympathies" to passengers and crew on board, and their families, the statement added.

The 737 MAX 8 is one of the latest versions of a jet that was introduced in 1967. More than 10,000 737s have been produced, making it the best-selling jetliner of all time.

LION AIR: IN PROFILE

- Founded in 1999, Lion Air is Indonesia's biggest budget carrier and operates more than 650 daily flights across domestic and international routes.

- Lion Air has a fleet of 115 planes, primarily Boeing 737s of varying age. At the 2017 Paris Air Show the carrier placed an $8.7bn order for 50 737 Max 10 passenger jets, making the airline Boeing's second largest customer.

- The airline has had a chequered safety record, with various plane crashes. In 2013, one of its Boeing 737-800 jets missed the runway while landing on the resort island of Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 people on board.